A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad (Novel) - Chapter 155
Chapter 155
The smoothly split fog lost its shape and spilled downward.
The sight resembled blood flowing down from a monster cut in two.
“So you were hiding there.”
Tesetan, whose sword aura had begun throbbing again, murmured.
Her gaze was directed at Astie, who had revealed herself through the fog.
Tesetan adjusted his grip on the sword and once more took up an attack stance.
Valentis tensed both legs, preparing to spring forward.
By nature, interfering in another person’s duel of honor was taboo.
But she could not leave Tesetan to harm Astie.
Kagagagang-!
Yet before Valentis could step in.
The sword strike Tesetan had gathered in the air scattered emptily.
Something entered Valentis’s field of vision as he followed the situation.
Above Astie’s head.
Astie’s familiar, the one that had neutralized Tesetan’s attack, was floating there.
[Now!]
As Lucarion shouted, a fierce gust blew along the barrier surrounding Tie.
The cloak fluttered, repeatedly covering and revealing the child’s face.
At Astie’s feet, black energy began to undulate.
The energy covered the ruins in an instant, then at some point all at once seeped into the ground.
Kugugugugugugu-
The ground shook and dirt flew upward.
The army only the Necromancer King could call forth, the dead, revealed themselves.
Yet they looked different from the ones that had been heard of in rumors until now.
Even in Tesetan’s eyes there appeared a slight tension.
‘Is it because the place is ruins?’
The first skeleton that came into view was holding something strange in one arm.
A relic that had probably lain asleep in the ruins for a thousand years.
A magical device that started ancient magic, a rod.
Boom! Boom-!
When the white bones swung the rod, condensed masses of mana flew at Tesetan.
At the same time, the rest of the skeleton army too began charging at Tesetan all at once.
* * *
Tesetan kept swinging his sword.
As the sword strikes lengthened into the form of sword blades, dozens of skeletons crumbled.
But it was useless.
Kugugugugu-
The skeletons that had vanished under the dirt were restored in perfect condition and appeared again.
Boom! Kwa-gwagwang-!
From the sky, giant fireballs continued to pour down without pause.
Among the skeletons, those holding rods were mages.
What was more, their magic was quite sophisticated.
Most of it was elemental-centered magic, but the tightly controlled formulae were rather advanced, making it difficult to find a weakness.
Meanwhile.
Enduring the mana that pounded through her whole body, Tie brought both hands together.
He was short of breath, as though he were being forced to endure while standing inside a boiling bath.
But even that was still not enough.
Standing within Lucarion’s barrier, Tie watched Dad moving at an unbelievable speed.
The words saying he was the strongest in this world had not been a lie.
Dad really was strong.
Stronger than Mister Basto, stronger than Brother Veil.
No, stronger than all of them put together.
Tie amplified her mana even more.
And then he let that roiling power move however it pleased.
As though it had been waiting for just that, the mana began to be sucked down through his feet like a waterfall.
It felt as though he were standing over a giant bathtub whose drain had been opened all the way.
The earth shook as it took in Tie’s overflowing mana.
The wraiths in the area began to gather in the sky.
[An enemy.]
[Protect the master.]
[Follow the order.]
The peculiar monologues of the wraiths rang at his ears.
Everything around them was rapidly freezing from the chill they were emitting.
‘Dad……’
Tensing her shivering body, Tie prayed.
With his eyes, he stared at Tesetan lest he lose sight of him.
But there was not even a sign of confusion on Tesetan’s face across from him.
“You do something more interesting than the rumors said.”
Tesetan, who had swept away in a single blow the skeletons that rushed at him, swung his sword in a circle.
Golden holy power pooled in the shape of a ring, then exploded in a brief instant.
Kwa-gwang-!
At the debris scattered like thorns, several skeletons standing before Tie staggered.
The shattered bones poured onto the ground in a clatter.
The same was true of the rods they had been holding.
Tie felt the number of skeleton voices being heard from underground decrease.
The blow dealt this time had been quite large.
It meant his bone friends would have difficulty regenerating their bodies again.
[This will not do.]
From beside him, Ppuppu muttered.
Ppuppu, in a human form, was staring at Tesetan with a displeased look.
Having risen into the sky, he said to Lucarion, who was activating the barrier.
[Lizard. You saw that one’s sword strikes, did you not? There is a weakness.]
Dark-red fog wrapped around his tall body and fluttered like a robe.
[The problem is that the sword aura is stronger than the sword itself.]
Ppuppu stretched both hands forward.
On top of his palms, red spheres gathered and formed a giant vortex.
[After he releases one slash, that one’s sword falls into a brief silence state. It is probably to regenerate itself.]
Ppuppu’s gaze sharpened.
[I shall once again shut that one inside the subspace.]
He looked at Lucarion with arrogant eyes.
[You, once my subspace has been cut and he has fallen into that silence state, release a slash.]
Lucarion, who seemed to think for a moment, nodded.
Ppuppu did not drag out the time.
He immediately spread the subspace in the form of a net and poured it straight toward Tesetan without hesitation.
Tesetan flinched at the giant vortex descending from the sky to cover him.
Of course, the agitation was brief.
Focusing his mind again, Tesetan opened Awakening of Sacred Sight.
Then he flexibly swung his sword and cut through the subspace without much difficulty.
But there was something he had overlooked.
“……!”
Beyond the subspace split in half.
Things he had failed to see were revealed.
Peculiar masses of light were pouring down like arrows on a battlefield.
“Commander! Dodge!”
Tesetan’s eyes widened.
Beyond the strike, he saw a black figure, the source of the light.
That thing, resembling the young dragon from legend, was the Necromancer King’s familiar.
The being that had deflected all of his attacks throughout the entire duel of honor.
‘The familiar’s power is at this level?’
A hollow laugh slipped out on its own.
No matter what, even he could not deny it, the Necromancer King was strong.
The Necromancer King’s familiar too possessed a destructive power that far exceeded expectations.
That unidentified light would be more than enough to tear Tesetan to pieces.
With a high probability, it would inflict a fatal wound on him.
Tesetan quickly twisted his body to dodge the bombardment.
But that was not all.
At the final moment, one remaining strike slammed into his shoulder.
“Ugh……!”
Swallowing down a groan, Tesetan rolled hard across the ground.
Red blood pattered down from the shoulder he was clutching.
At the pain, as though his arm had been severed, his vision went dim.
Tesetan bit the flesh inside his mouth and raised his head.
Then, wearing a crooked smile, he barely said,
“This much is nothing.”
Enduring pain was something he had done to the point of disgust.
By now it had become as natural as breathing, so it was not surprising.
So the problem lay elsewhere.
Despite having unleashed such a strike, the Necromancer King’s familiar still had power to spare and had begun preparing a second strike.
Concentrating holy power into his shoulder to stop the bleeding, Tesetan fell into thought.
‘This time, I can dodge it.’
At least part of it.
But the rest that he failed to evade would strike his body.
‘……Not ideal.’
He was already injured.
If he were wounded any more than this, the bleeding would become worse.
He had even already spent more stamina than expected.
In the end there was only one solution.
Tesetan’s jaw tightened.
‘After going around and around, it’s a breakthrough battle again.’
A fight staked on how long he could endure with his own mental fortitude, standing on the border of survival.
At the end of his gaze came the Necromancer King standing alone.
Ever since the battle had begun, the Necromancer King had remained standing in that same posture.
Perhaps because even for the strongest necromancer it was burdensome to activate magic of this scale, his eyes were tightly shut.
Tesetan thought.
‘There’s no helping it.’
He would evade the familiar’s strikes as much as possible.
As for the rest, he would take them in places that were not as fatal as he could manage.
His left arm would be reduced to rags, but if he saved his right arm, that was enough.
Then somehow he would still be able to swing the sword.
If it came to that, even a monster like the Necromancer King would someday run into a limit.
There was no retreat from this duel of honor anyway.
If he left the Necromancer King as she was, Trevaga would fall.
And the fall of Trevaga was something he could not permit even if it meant his death.
The familiar’s attack shot forth.
At the same time, the Necromancer King opened her eyes as well.
Tesetan deliberately did not avoid the gaze that met his.
Because he wanted to let the Necromancer King know.
How he had survived until now.
How stubborn and tenacious he could be.
And, in order to live, how low and miserable a thing he could do.
But what happened after that was something he had not expected at all.
“……No!”
Seeing the strike released by his own familiar, the Necromancer King cried out in a voice filled with terror.
“Lucarion! Stop!”
At the same time, the familiar’s attack flying toward Tesetan stopped in midair.